


First Save

by kikibug13



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Poison, palace plots, reference to sadism, reference to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Vorhartung Castle, nothing is as harmless as it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Save

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ollipop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ollipop/gifts).



Drou smoothed her skirt with one hand. Her palm wasn't sweating much, but she was still - unused to her new position. Her new, enormously important and responsible position. Not even after months with no significant mishaps could she shake the feeling.

The Princess's eyes fell on her, and she tried to straighten up more (hard, when she was already as straight as she would go) and fix a smile on her face. The dark eyes passed her by, and she focused on her son for another moment, then turned her own serene smile to her guest, a Countess who had heaps of advice for the care of the young boy. 

At least the tea was almost done with, and the aging woman would soon leave. Perhaps then the subtle tension Drou was learning to recognize in the Princess's shoulders would ease once more. It wasn't a great bad tension, not even a little like the one that Drou had only seen once, when Prince Serg's voice was heard down a hallway, but it was still a sign for Drou that there was something going on _more_ than met the eye.

Well, that wasn't new, in Drou's experience of life in the Castle. (She just didn't want to watch the Princess's face go still and cold like stone again. _Nobody_ should have to be that afraid, and keeping her safe was her task, wasn't it?) With a blink, she tried to focus on the present conversation again. Something about getting the boy a pet, with strong hints about a specific veterinary doctor as the source. Drou wasn't _positive_ , but she suspected that a two-year-old wasn't supposed to have a cat. Or a dog, even. Though the boy could probably use the companionship, he was just too small for such a responsibility - he was barely more than a toddler!

But that consideration couldn't account for tension. When Princess Kareen disagreed with something, she went quiet in a different way, seeming to concur with whatever she was presented with, but actually deflecting as much as possible, stalling, scattering. She was far better at it than some of the officers Drou had seen in tactical simulation exercises for evasion. This was different - the Princess's chin was still raised, and her words confident. Masking, hiding. Her eyes sometimes flicked to the additional guard (also one of Captain Negri's men) then back to her guest. _She is afraid,_ Drou realized, suddenly, when it registered that the Princess wasn't touching her son at all, instead one hand held her cup steadily, and the other one was clenched in the elegant skirts, low, almost hidden in her seat. Drou could see it. She was pretty certain nobody else could, from how everyone was standing.

It pushed the bodyguard into full alert. The details that her eyes took in gave her no clue as to what might have scared the Princess, and the sounds she picked up, no matter how much she strained, were all well within the range of what she had come to accept as normal for the Imperial Residence.

Fifteen minutes later, the Countess was gone, and the Princess was trying to coax her son into taking his nap without sucking on his thumb. It was a complicated negotiation, and Drou would have smiled - if only the faint tension traces hadn't solidified, now that there was only the three of them, into drown-down eyebrows and pinched mouth. 

"Your Highness? Is anything wrong? Should I ask Captain Negri to limit the Countess's visits to you outside of--" 

"The Countess? No, that's all right, Droushnakovi. She's... harmless." The pause was clear and loud, as a qualifier. _As harmless as any Vor will ever be._ But the Princess knew well enough that she didn't need to spell that out, for her, so Drou just nodded. And waited, letting the older woman reach the decision whether she wanted to share what was bothering her on her own. She had asked for a female guard, after all - a woman, loyal to her in particular. That couldn't be just so she could say that she had one. Princess Kareen did not work like that. She had something else she wanted, or needed, and Drou - so much younger though she was - just suspected she could use a friend. Or as close to a friend as she could get. Somebody who could at least begin to understand the life she was leading now.

Gregor had fallen asleep, before the Princess spoke again. It was short, and Drou... ended up trying to figure out what she meant, later, drawing up ImpSec data that she had access to.

"I'm afraid of what Gregor might do, to something smaller and weaker than him."

What she found chilled her to the bone, and she was sure that many of the details were so secret that maybe only Captain Negri and Emperor Ezar would be able to access them. Not Crown Prince Serg. Surely never him - he'd _done_ those things himself. He surely didn't need to be reminded of them. 

_Or maybe he enjoys reading about his past deeds, planning on future ones..._

Drou shuddered, and one of the first things the Princess had told her - that she should try to stay as close to invisible, especially when Prince Serg was visiting - made far more sense to her. The warning hadn't been a criticism on how she was, or was to, perform her duties, after all. It had been to ensure her safety, with as little as the Princess could give. _Thank you, Your Highness_ , she mentally addressed her charge - and, not quite for the very first time, considered the frightening idea that, maybe, yes, the Princess did want her as a friend, or at least some sort of confidante, despite how great the disparity between them. It boggled Drou's mind. But there was only one thing she could do. Try to be what was expected of her. 

When they were next alone, she dared to suggest, as diffidently as she could but without avoiding the deep brown eyes, "I think the only way to teach him better is with care, and the sooner we start, the sooner we may know how things will have to be."

The Princess didn't even pretend to be confused as to what Drou was talking about. She considered it for a moment, and nodded. 

A fluffy, friendly puppy was delivered from the vet's office a week later.

There was nothing in how Gregor treated the small creature to support the Princess's fears. Nothing at all. The boy was too young to understand responsibility, but he was full of love for the puppy. He even listened attentively to the instructions he was given about it - not to squeeze it too tight, not to pull or pinch very hard, and, his dark eyes serious, kept his chubby hands careful when their playtime meant wrestling on the floor or chasing each other around furniture. 

The Princess's smile at their antics lost most of its strain by the second day. By the third, she was relaxing, and the boy's sincere joy was filling Drou with a sense that things were right in the world. Despite past damage.

It was nearly a week later that she noticed something strange in the way the puppy moved, however. She was taking Gregor for his playtime with it, and the little dog's usually adorably half-clumsy, half-graceful long legs were just about tangling up, and he swayed a bit. Drousnakovi, on full alert after just a glance, picked up the boy and held him up, away from the puppy, despite Gregor's squirming and clear insistence to be let go.

"I think your puppy might be sick, Gregor. He might be not feeling well." She backed out of the room, and had to cope with the young prince's tears, but something inside her mind was screaming _danger!_ and she resisted the boy's pleas, handing him off to a nearby security officer. "Here, stay with him for a little bit, I'll go back to see if he's really not okay, please, don't cry, okay? I think he'll be all right, it'll be all right."

The guard was definitely discomfited, to be handed the nearly wailing child, but he met her eyes and nodded with reluctance, before she let herself release her hold on the boy. 

The puppy went to her the moment she returned to the room, and she knelt to have a closer look. It was definitely not feeling well, trying to get closer for comfort, and she reached out to stroke his fur. A tuft of it stuck to her palm.

That was enough for her use her comm link, call in people who knew how to deal with, well, puppy sickness. She was just finishing off the report when the first cramp started - three sharp-bladed, shallow breaths later, her vision went black.

Droushnakovi woke up in medbay, and that was the next thing she knew. The people she'd called for had found her passed out on the floor, the puppy dead, curled up against her. Investigation had found out, they told her as she recovered, that the puppy had been injected with a substance, very close in composition to a common vaccine, that was harmless on its own. But when mixed with enough cumulative chemical from his food - and the same vet had provided the food supply, as well, monitored as anything coming inside the Castle ever was - the compound in the almost-vaccine would break down into a tricky, stupid non-lethal poison. Her larger frame had delayed the worst effects of it until she'd been taken to help. 

If Gregor had been the one touching the puppy, he'd have woken up from his own passing out, and been in pain for a while, long before the puppy died to tell its story and get him the proper aid. 

She was clear of any traces of the whole thing almost two weeks later. She worried, about being away from her post for that long, but at least she was cleared to exercise only a few days in, keeping in shape against threats for the Princess and Gregor was very, very important.

But not nearly so much as Gregor's face when she finally was allowed to report back for duty. He practically glowed, and managed not to fall down even once in his rush to her. "Drushie! Druuuushie!"

"Hey. How have you--"

"Where were you!"

"I was sick. I'm all right, now."

"Like puppy?"

Drou met the Princess's eyes over the head of the boy clinging to her. "No. Not like the puppy. But I guess you're stuck with me, for now."

"Okay."

Kareen's face was much more restrained, and her words practical, unrushed. When they were alone, she told Drou what none of the people tending to her had had clearance to explain. The Countess that had suggested the vet had been questioned with fast-penta, and had been cleared of all charges, with a stern talking-to. Her dog-carer, and the veterinary, however, had been questioned, found tied to Lord Ges Vorrutyer and had been quietly disappeared. The questions, the Princess said, were answered. Drou wasn't sure how, exactly, but she trusted the older woman to know what she was talking about. Even through that uncertainty, Kareen conveyed enough that Drou's heart warmed for seeing the same kind of joy, if toned down, on the mother as well as on the son.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a while to get a good bead on a thing to _happen_ that I could actually write, but now that the words are out? Maybe there'll be future treats with more things happening, in the future!


End file.
